


The Table, Shattered

by RobberBaroness



Series: Darkest Timeline [11]
Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Religious Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22309135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/pseuds/RobberBaroness
Summary: Guinevere rides through the forest in a state of desperation.
Relationships: Guinevere/Arthur Pendragon, Guinevere/Lancelot du Lac
Series: Darkest Timeline [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1598476
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	The Table, Shattered

Guinevere didn’t know how long she rode before seeing the knights. The night was cold against her skin, bare through her torn dress, and the places Mordred had hurt her were beginning to bruise. Ordinarily she could have told whether she was with friend or foe by the devices on their shields, but the heraldry of Camelot could mean anything now- Arthur’s men or Mordred’s men. Guinevere put her hand on the hilt of Excalibur- if it were the latter, she would die fighting like Ragnelle.

The knight in front of her lifted his visor and she saw a pair of hooded brown eyes and the fringes of chestnut hair.

“Guinevere? Christ, what have they done to you?”

Guinevere clambered down from her horse and threw herself, sobbing, into Kay’s arms. Someone placed a cloak over her shoulders and she found herself babbling about everything, Mordred and Bertholt, Gawain and Ragnelle, and Arthur Arthur Arthur, and Kay was guiding her over to a spot where she could sit down.

“Mordred,” Kay said. “He did this to you.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” she said, “and he tried to do worse. But the sword- I pulled at it and he was blinded, and I ran.”

Kay picked up the sword experimentally.

“I can’t read Pictish runes,” he said, “but my guess is it says something like ‘rightwise monarch of the Britons’ and Merlin gave us a typically misleading translation. At least the Ladies of the Lake could have said something when they were blessing it. Good work with it, in any case.”

“I...I think I killed a man.”

Kay grinned.

“Then you already have better qualifications than little Gareth when Arthur made me knight him.” Guinevere could tell Kay was in deep mourning for the youth because he was using his real name, rather than a demeaning (and frankly baffling) one about the ladylike appearance of his hands.

“Arthur…” she said. “Mordred’s men attacked him. Do you know what happened to him?”

“We received a message. Arthur is supposedly alive and in a castle owned by Morgan le Fay. I don’t like it. It feels like a trap. So now in order to fight Mordred, whom I never trusted, and Lancelot, whom I never trusted, I have to ally myself with Morgan, whom I never trusted. It’s a great day all around for people I dislike.”

Guinevere had to hope, at the very least.

“Morgan. She hates me. When I was young and full of my own pride, I chided her for an affair with my cousin. I’m sure she’ll be amused to see me now, the best known whore in all the isles.”

Kay put his hand on Guinevere’s.

“No one speaks of what happened like that. They speak of Lancelot the madman and his traitorous attack upon the queen. Those who hate the French tell especially gruesome accounts.”

He sighed.

“This would all be so much easier if that blasted fairy godmother of his hadn’t given him magical equipment. I could be the greatest warrior in all of Christendom, too, if I had supernatural help.”

“I heard you could control fire and heat and that any wound you inflict will never heal,” Guinevere teased gently.

“Did you? I’ll bet you everything you heard it from Culhwch. That man will say anything once you get him going, especially if there’s wine to be found at the table.”

“Maybe I did. He also told me that Bedivere was known for being the most handsome of all the knights, so he wasn’t always exaggerating.” 

Kay’s face fell when she spoke the name.

“Bedivere...You should know. He met with Lancelot in the forest. We had just finished burying him when Morgan’s messenger reached us.”

“No, “Guinevere said softly. “No, no…”. Bedivere had survived so many things that should have killed him. He’d been Arthur’s friend since the King was just the second son of a poor knight. He’d been one of the first Knights of the Round Table, the first genuinely friendly face after her husband’s she’d seen when arriving at Camelot, the leader of Arthur’s army. He couldn’t be gone.

“And it was all because of me.”

“It was all because of Lancelot,” Kay said. “Plenty of men fancied you, believe me, and most of them kept their hands to themselves.”

She looked down at her lap. “They used to tell me Helen of Troy launched a thousand ships with her beauty. I wonder if she wanted to. I wonder if she wept for all the dead of Greece. I wonder if she ever asked to be the prize in someone else’s contest. I wonder if Aphrodite made her love Paris or simply silenced her as she tried to scream.”

Kay shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I never could understand the gods in those stories. Father used to tell them to us in order to teach us good Roman values, and all I took away was that there was a reason Rome had lost its power.”

Guinevere couldn’t help laughing at that, through her tears.

“But tell whatever story you want,” Kay said, “Lancelot can’t hide forever. And before this is all over, I promise you I’ll deliver you the bastard’s head in a box.”

He broke off at her expression.

“Would you prefer we take him alive? I would advise against it, although of course it’s your choice. If it’s mercy you’re after, you should know that treason against the crown is punished by burning. Death by the sword is a kindness in comparison.”

“I know the penalty for treason,” Guinevere said. “Burning would have been my fate if they hadn’t believed Lancelot forced me.” To think of that, to think of what had happened and know that even with what Lancelot had done to her, she still could have been condemned...

Kay shook his head.

“No one would have allowed that to happen. I swear to you.”

“That’s not what my brother used to say. He would frighten me as a child by telling me that if I were ever disobedient, my husband would be allowed to kill me.” Her dry tone hid what had once been a real fear- nights of panic when her parents discussed her marriage, nights of threats from Kevoura. _Disobey me all you want, sweet sister, but there’ll come a time when you’ll pay for it_.

“And I thought I’d been a bully to Arthur,” said Kay. “Did you really think that? That he’d kill you?”

“Not once I’d come to know him. But when we were betrothed, my brother made such...threats. I’d give him power and land, or he’d see to it that I was caught being disobedient. The threats he made- I’m sure he did not mean them, but they were too vulgar to repeat here.” She’d done her best not to think about Kevoura for years. Her first order as queen, once she’d become confident enough to issue one, was to bar her brother from ever setting foot in the castle. But what had happened now was close enough to his threats that it was impossible not to think of him. It was why she’d fled her wedding in the first place. Meeting Arthur had changed all that of course, but...

“Guinevere-”

“He said even if I’d been forced, they’d still burn me.”

“Even if you hadn’t been forced,” said Kay, “they wouldn’t burn you. Or they wouldn’t burn you alone, because I’d do my best to kill Arthur for issuing such an order, and then they’d burn the both of us together.”

She almost laughed at that.

“It doesn’t matter. Do as you think best with Lancelot- I won’t try to tell you your duty, let alone argue tactics.” She pressed a hand to her eye. “Bedivere would have known better than me on that front.”

Kay’s head shot up at the sound of movement in the forest and Guinevere’s heart skipped a beat.

“Hide,” was all Kay would say, and she dove behind the nearest tree for cover.

***

Lancelot saw himself back beside the Round Table, but the room was stiflingly hot. Mordred stood across from him, and judging by his demeanor, he was feeling the heat just as much as his enemy. Mordred’s presence was far more important than a matter of the weather, and Lancelot raised his sword to strike him. His blow landed but did not kill, and Mordred struck back with a cut that felt as if salt had already been rubbed into the emerging wound. They hacked at each other for what felt like hours, neither falling nor winning, and a woman’s voice laughed and laughed and laughed.

Guinevere sat at the table laughing, or something that took the form of Guinevere. Guinevere had never held such a look of cruel glee, and she certainly hadn’t had talons or fangs.

“Come on, boys!” laughed the demon in Guinevere’s shape. “Spill enough blood and I’ll give you a kiss!”

Lancelot opened his eyes and he was back in the forest. He’d nodded off in the middle of one of Tristram’s stories about the time King Mark almost caught him with the fair Isolde, and he had seen his own future.

“You look like you’ve seen Hell,” said Galahad. “From your face, it must have been much worse than I ever imagined.”

If that was what awaited him, Lancelot thought, why bother fighting it? He could take Mordred, he could rally an army. He could seize Camelot and his true love by force. He could kill his former King. He could rule over a devastated countryside with his Queen chained to his throne, as Malegaunt had done before him. If hell was to be his destination, should he not enjoy his time on earth?

As if he would enjoy any of that. As if Guinevere would not prefer death over it. As if Tristram were not following him in the misguided belief that they were fighting for a noble cause. As if Galahad would not be there to haunt him through his doomed reign.

Lancelot shook his head, as if the action could somehow clear his mind. It would never be free of Guinevere. If only she knew that she’d had her revenge already, he thought, the way she had utterly ruined him body and soul. Queen Guinevere, her enemies had once said, was a destroyer of good knights. Through no fault of her own, so she was.

“...and then Sir Lamorak dared to imply that Morgause was fairer than Isolde, and so we fought the grandest battle ever staged between two brother knights,” Tristram was saying.

“Some people are inspired by love to do good deeds,” said Galahad. “I wonder if that has ever occurred to either of you.”

“Quiet, both of you,” Lancelot said. Tristram chattered on somewhat more quietly, apparently not having noticed (or been bothered by) the word ‘both’. But Lancelot listened to the sound from the trees more closely. It couldn’t be what he thought. It was another vision of madness, simply taking the form of her sweet voice to further torment him. But it was a madness so entrancing he could not resist it, and he motioned for Tristram to follow him as he stepped forward through the trees.

He did not see her when he came to the place he’d heard her voice. But he did see a band of knights, and one of them was unmistakable.

“At last,” said Kay, unsheathing his sword. 

“I know the extent of my crimes, seneschal,” said Lancelot. “I know that Camelot must see me die. I will be your prisoner. But I ask that you allow me to serve as your fighting slave, that I may in some part pay for my sins by killing the traitor Mordred.”

Kay sneered.

“Is that the deal you offered Bedivere, by any chance? The time when we would accept surrender has long since passed. Die here in the woods, like the animal you are.”

And then there was a circle of swords upon Lancelot, and he was parrying them automatically, his body moving into position without so much as a thought. Tristram was the first priority. He still thought he was fighting by the side of a good man for the cause of true love, and could not be allowed to die under false pretenses. Lancelot swung at a blow meant for his companion, and Sir Aglovale pulled back a bloody stump where his hand had been. Another blow from Lancelot and the knight stood there no more.

He could not place names to the faces of all the knights he cut down in the fight. Some were unknown to him, some unfamiliar, some simply dead too soon. The one who came closest to landing a blow on Lancelot had been Sir Tor, spawn of King Pellinor’s shameless deeds, a good-hearted shepherd boy turned loyal knight, now lying in a pool of blood in the same sort of rustic setting that had once been his home.

For Tristram. For Guinevere. For the death of Mordred. He could not stop to think, or all of those would be lost forever. There would be time later to count the dead, time to recognize which kills had been his and which ones Tristram’s. For now all he could do was kill in a blind frenzy, until he was facing the man he could blame for the entire confrontation.

Kay, who had trained him. Kay, with whom he had quarrelled nearly every day he’d lived at Camelot. Kay, without whom the entire court would have fallen apart years ago. Lancelot lifted his sword to end the confusion in his heart and mind, and then there was a blinding flash. Lancelot fell to his knees in pain, unable to believe that he could not see anything but the brightness, and from Tristram’s cry of pain, he knew it was not another flash of madness.

When at last the pain receded and he could see images through the glare, he looked up and caught a glimpse of another angel. An angel even more beautiful than Galahad, for she had taken the shape of Guinevere, riding a horse and weilding a flaming sword. He could not possibly have been struck down and gone to heaven, surely, but she was reaching out to him and she was so beautiful-

And she wasn’t an angel at all. She was Guinevere, and she was wielding Excalibur. And she wasn't reaching out to him at all, but to Kay.

She seized the arm of her brother in law, pulling him up from the ground. Lancelot could only touch the hem of her dress by the time Kay was mounted on the horse and they had taken off deeper into the forest.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I know Excalibur is not canonically the sword in the stone, but it's more fun this way. I'm going with the compromise worked out by the movie Excalibur, where it got blessed by the Lady at a later date.
> 
> Kevoura is an Arthurian villain I didn't even know about until recently. Check the wikipedia page for Saint Tryphine, and gasp along with me!


End file.
